Enhancing creativity

As Nickerson (1999: 407) notes, "A clear, univocal, and incontestable answer to the question of how creativity can be enhanced is not to be found in psychological literature." He lists the most common ways of enhancing creativity on the level of personality. They include: establishing purpose and intention, encouraging acquisition of domain-specific knowledge, stimulating and rewarding curiosity and exploration, building motivation (especially internal motivation), encouraging confidence and a willingness to take risks, focusing on mastery and self-competition, promoting supportable belief about creativity, providing opportunities for choice and discovery, developing self-management (metacognitive) skills, teaching technique and strategies for facilitating creative performance, etc. Other ways include establishing proper conditions for creativity, including love, trust, unconditioned acceptance, lack of judgment and evaluation, and freedom of expression (Rogers 1961; 1968; 1969).